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The murder of George Floyd ignited the hearts of the American people. Floyd’s murder occurred during a pandemic, which was thought to be one but was two: COVID-19 and racism. Over the past month, waves of protests erupted rocking the nation to its core. As they take a stand against social injustice, police brutality, and structural racism. Black Lives Matter protests have engulfed more than 75 cities and all 50 states for police reform.
The community’s sense of urgency in addressing social inequities was once again galvanized by the recent murder of Rayshard Brooks.
Brooks, a married father of four, was trying to rebuild his family in Atlanta, Georgia following incarceration. He ultimately succumbed to the same fate as many other African American men and women murdered at the hands of police. He was shot in the back two times as he fled from an officer’s revolver with their taser in hand.
While media coverage has focused on protests in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Cities large and small have been swept up in this tidal wave of change. Ohio has long been viewed as “the heart of it all,” a phrase commonly used in the state’s tourism advertisements. Columbus, Ohio’s capital city, embodies all the challenges faced by larger cities, as it relates to policing including negative impacts on minority communities and the use of excessive force.
During this wave of protests, Columbus awakened to protest the many injustices faced by communities in this mid-size Midwestern city. Protesters focused on the national tragedy of George Floyd but also on state and local issues. Police responded to protestors by using tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. At one point during the protests, Columbus City Council President Shannon G. Hardin; Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce, and U.S. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty all African American, were pepper sprayed during a demonstration. These events, among many others put the Columbus Police Department (CPD) in the spotlight regarding issues of excessive force.
The increased awareness of excessive force by the CPD was exposed in a recent use of force report published in 2019. The 330-page report, conducted by the Matrix Consulting Group, examined the use of force by Columbus Police officers between 2013 and 2017. The report was completed for the Columbus Community Safety Advisory Commission. The report found that although African Americans comprise 28% of the city’s population, they account for between 49% to 53% of the use of force incidents. The report concluded a “clear and discernible disparity of application of use of force between black and white contacts.” 8 out of 10 white residents rated policing as good or excellent. People of color rated policing 6 out of 10 finding it less than satisfactory.
This dissatisfaction can be attributed to use of force cases in African American communities. The shootings of Tyre King and Henry Green being among the most recent. Like Tamir Rice, Tyre King was a 13-year-old boy shot by the Columbus police. Officers responded to an armed robbery call on September 15. 2016. When officers came across three young men who matched the description in an alley approximately one block from the alleged scene of the crime, they claimed one of the young men pulled a gun from his waistband. Officers opened fire on the child multiple times. King was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. A follow-up investigation of the crime scene revealed police had spotted a BB gun with a laser sight not a handgun. The officer who fired the fatal shots was later identified as Bryan Mason. Family members questioned the narrative, but there was no footage of this incident as officers were not wearing body cams.
The 2018 case of Henry Green is another example of excessive force. Green and a friend, Chris Rutledge, were walking toward a house in Linden, a working-class, predominantly Black neighborhood of Columbus’ Eastside on June 6th, 2016. Almost instantaneously, a truck with tinted windows swerved toward them. Two white men jumped out and before proper identification could be obtained, shots rang out. When the smoke cleared, Green lay shot seven times and in handcuffs. His friend, Rutledge was arrested and detained for five hours. Rutledge remained in custody without knowledge that his companion Green was dead. The white men in the SUV were Columbus Police officers Jason Bare and Zachary Rosen.
Bare and Rosen were part of the Community Safety Initiative, a program designed by the police to target neighborhoods viewed as high crime and in need of additional police presence during the summer months. Residents of the communities monitored by the program complain their neighborhoods are over policed and profiled. Residents described members of the CPD involved in this work as “jump out boys.” Between 2013 and 2017, 28 individuals were fatally shot by CPD, 21 were Black. Despite calls to review the Green murder and enlist the assurance of a special prosecutor, these calls were not heeded by city authorities.
Although Columbus is the nation’s 14th largest city and has a police force of 1800, the CPD is severely lacking diversity. The department is currently facing more than two dozen lawsuits alleging black employees have been driven out of the department in a pattern of race discrimination and retaliation. CPD has come under federal scrutiny in the past for its pattern of practice of civil rights violations, racial profiling, excessive force, and false arrests. What is most disheartening is that the death of Black people at the hands of people trained to serve and protect us often goes unnoticed and disregarded. Columbus is a safe city with a low crime rate but the CPD’s use of the excessive force and tendency to fatally shoot Blacks in significantly higher proportions than whites represents a disturbing pattern. When it comes to reforming policing, regardless of size, cities have real work to do and Columbus is no exception.